Beyond Peace (22 page)

As a result, throughout the Muslim world today there are rapidly growing fundamentalist movements whose members appear to be loyal to their own countries but whose first loyalty is to the extreme Muslim fundamentalist religion with its roots in Iran.

As Rabin emphasized, this is an insidious form of aggression. It allows the aggressor to take over its victim without risking international condemnation. Rather than going over a border, Iran in effect goes under a border and enlists citizens of the target nation who share its extreme religious faith to carry out its designs for conquest.

Iran's strategy, as the Soviets' used to be, is to expand its
influence and domination over other countries by the appeal of its ideas rather than the use of raw military power. Another striking similarity between their tactics is that Iran uses terrorism to support its aggression.

The United States should adopt a policy of isolation and containment toward both Iraq and Iran. The objective should be to give both countries problems at home so that they cannot cause problems abroad.

Our strategy toward Iraq should be to completely isolate Saddam Hussein's regime from the outside and to support dissident groups on the inside. The policy now is limited to enforcing no-fly zones to protect the Kurds in the north and the Shiites in the south, maintaining economic sanctions to squeeze Saddam out of power, and enforcing U.N. inspections against Iraqi nuclear arms programs. It is not enough. We should actively support the main opposition to Saddam, the Iraqi National Congress, as it seeks to force Baghdad to open up its political system. We should also offer Jordan increased economic incentives and a major role in the Arab-Israeli peace process as encouragement to turn off the spigot of trade until Saddam Hussein falls from power.

Our strategy toward Iran should be to contain its influence inside and outside the Persian Gulf. We should keep open the possibility of directly exploiting Iran's weaknesses if it continues its campaign of terror and intimidation against Western interests. Iran has turned state-sponsored terrorism into a science. If it persists with its subversion and terrorism, we should be prepared to assist ethnic and religious factions in Iran that oppose the Tehran regime, thereby weakening its ability to threaten our interests abroad.

Iran still suffers from the devastation caused by the Iran-Iraq War, in which more than a million Iranians died. Despite its enormous oil wealth, Iran has squandered its economic opportunities through poor planning, costly statist economic projects, and financial mismanagement. As long as Iran seeks to subvert
its neighbors and support terrorist groups against Western targets, we must make sure that the West does nothing to help Tehran escape its economic quandaries. We should seek agreements with the Russian government not to sell Russian military hardware and technology to the Iranians, especially in view of the fact that Iranian influence is beginning to infiltrate Muslim countries along Russia's southern border. We should increase assistance to those states, such as Egypt, that face subversion by Iranian-supported extremist groups and increase cooperation with modernist, pro-Western Muslim states, such as Turkey. Above all, we must recognize that our major long-term threat in the Gulf is Iran, not Iraq.

The best way to contain Iran's extremist threats and those of others in the region and throughout the Muslim world is to strengthen our relations with responsible leaders such as King Hassan of Morocco, President Mubarak of Egypt, King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, and President Suharto of Indonesia.

Nearly a quarter century ago, my administration, with Henry Kissinger's skillful diplomacy, was able to convince Egypt's visionary Anwar el-Sadat that he should turn away from the Soviet Union and toward the West. This proved to be one of the most significant geopolitical developments of the Cold War era. A pro-Western Egypt made the Camp David Accords, and ultimately the Rabin-Arafat agreements, possible.

When I visited Egypt in 1974, seven million people lined our routes as Sadat and I traveled the country in open cars and by train—one of the most overwhelming receptions ever accorded a state visitor. The welcome, demonstrating the Egyptian people's affection for the American people and the legacy of freedom and prosperity we represented, was offered in the traditions of hospitality, openness, and tolerance that are the true hallmarks of Muslim philosophy. It is these pro-American impulses, which hundreds of millions of Muslims share, that should be the guideposts of our policy, rather than the ravings of malcontents and tyrants. By cultivating partnerships with nations
that share our interests and our political and economic ideals, the United States can help create success stories that will serve as examples to other nations and increase stability and prosperity throughout all sectors of the Islamic world while further marginalizing extremist regimes and groups.

One Muslim nation that deserves its place in a full partnership with the United States is Turkey, whose recent emergence as a major diplomatic player in the Gulf region has been a highly positive development. At the beginning of the century Turkey was often described as the sick man of Europe. During the Cold War, that image began to change as Turkey provided more troops for NATO than any other country. Now, as a result of strong leadership and the adoption of free-market policies, Turkey has the biggest economy in the Middle East. With a population of 60 million, Turkey should play a major diplomatic role commensurate with its economic and military power.

Regardless of objections from the anti-Turkish Greek lobby in the United States, we should increase our economic and military cooperation with Turkey. It can play a pivotal role as a bridge between the Muslim and Western worlds and can help check Iranian advances in the Middle East and positively influence Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kirgizia, and Kazakstan so they do not fall under Iranian influence.

The United States should also help moderate forces in Afghanistan who oppose extremist fundamentalism from Iran and other sources but who have been abandoned after the end of the Soviet war in Afghanistan. Afghanistan has not lost its strategic importance in terms of the fate of Central Asia. The British recognized its importance in the nineteenth century, as did the Soviets when they invaded Afghanistan in 1979. We must recognize this geopolitical reality today. If Afghanistan falls under an Iranian sphere of influence, Tehran would hold the keys to Central Asia.

With their vast oil wealth, and in view of the weakness of Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states, the Iraqi and Iranian
regimes will be in a position to threaten the Gulf indefinitely. Consequently, the United States should assume the responsibility of guaranteeing Gulf security with its military power. We should develop close relations with Saudi Arabia and other friendly Persian Gulf states. We should continue to stockpile pre-positioned materials, encourage these countries to build up their military infrastructures, be prepared to use force in any contingency that threatens our interest, and pledge further cooperation through informal agreements.

Because these regimes cannot openly embrace the United States for fear of inciting domestic violence, we should look the other way when they fail to follow our lead on other international issues. It is more important that they work with us on Gulf security issues.

Good relations with moderate Gulf states is not a substitute for a U.S. military guarantee. With a combined force of 225,000 troops, 1,300 tanks, and 567 aircraft and a total population of 18 million people, these states are military midgets in comparison with their Iraqi and Iranian neighbors. The United States must accept the fact that it is the only Western power with the military resources to project force and block Iranian and Iraqi advances in the region.

We should enhance sea- and airlift capabilities for putting U.S. troops into the Persian Gulf region. During the Persian Gulf War, it took six months to deploy the necessary soldiers and equipment. While Iraq gave us the time to prepare, the next aggressor probably will not make the same mistake. To the extent possible, we should pre-position equipment—such as tanks, heavy artillery, and light-armored vehicles—to form a limited defensive strike force that can be used in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states to deter aggression. More important, we should invest heavily in creating a genuine rapid-deployment force so we can move heavy divisions into the region quickly and exploit new technologies.

For better or worse, only the United States can fulfill this
role. We cannot afford to rely on other countries—either our Western European allies or friendly nations in the region—to protect our interests in the Persian Gulf. They may lack the military resources and possibly the political will to act decisively in a crisis.

This means that the United States faces very demanding military requirements for the foreseeable future. There is a limit to how much we can cut the defense budget if we are to maintain a strong military capable of defending our interests in such distant regions as the Persian Gulf. From 1985 to 1995, defense spending will have been cut over 50 percent in real terms. By 1998, the United States will spend less than 3.2 percent of its GNP on defense, the lowest level since the Roosevelt administration before the attack on Pearl Harbor.

As General William Odom has written, “The Persian Gulf War demonstrated to all other attentive military establishments that in the rankings of all the world's militaries, the United States not only is in first place; the next dozen or so places are not even occupied.” But Odom also noted that this capability can be thrown away in a few years of mismanagement. The strength of our military capabilities should not give us a false sense of security. The requirements that we face in the Persian Gulf are extremely demanding and will stretch our capabilities to their limit. The Gulf is as far from the United States as any region in the world, and we can expect to have no forward bases. If we are to have a base-line force to defend this region, we have to pay the budgetary price.

The United States cannot afford to reduce its military budget any further. The President should use his position as Commander in Chief to build public support for maintaining a strong military, despite domestic political pressures to cut defense spending so that we can fund other programs. We are on a slippery slope toward the hollow military of the late 1970s. With the rise of regional powers in the Gulf and the decline of our defense budgets, we may not be able to repeat Operation Desert
Storm if necessary in the late 1990s. This would not be a concern if the trends in the region were toward stability, but they are not.

The Arab-Israeli peace process is another key to stemming rising instability in the Middle East. For forty-five years Arabs and Israelis battled repeatedly and talked rarely. The agreements between the PLO and Israel were a major breakthrough. But they are only the first step on the long road to a just and lasting peace.

Constructive peace talks with Arab nations and the Palestinians serve both Israel's and America's interests. Israel has won each of the five wars it has fought with its Arab neighbors, but in each war its casualties have increased. Like the Koreans and the Vietnamese, Arabs too can learn to fight. One of the most dynamic leaders I ever met was Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion. He observed that the “extremists” in Israel who advocate the absorption of Arab lands would deprive Israel of its mission. “If they succeed, Israel will be neither Jewish nor democratic,” he said. “The Arabs will outnumber us and undemocratic, repressive measures will be needed to keep them under control.” It is estimated that there will be an Arab population of 1.3 million in Israel by the year 2000; it serves Israel's interest not to continue to treat Arabs as second-class citizens.

The chances for a lasting peace in the Middle East are the best they have been since the creation of the state of Israel. Instead of an aggressive Soviet Union supporting Israel's Arab enemies, we have democratic Russia supporting the peace process. Because they were on the wrong side of the Gulf War, Israel's enemies can no longer count on financial support from the wealthy Gulf oil states. With Egypt no longer anti-Israel after the Camp David Accords, the correlation of military forces is heavily weighted in Israel's favor. Failure to seize the moment to make a lasting peace now would be a tragedy for all the people in the Middle East, particularly because such favorable factors may not last. While Israeli hard-liners oppose a settlement with the Palestinians and Arab countries, Prime Minister Rabin has
courageously recognized that the time has come for Israel to bargain with its neighbors. He proved to be the right leader in the right place at the right time. It takes a strong leader to wage war, and it takes an even stronger leader to make peace.

As a hard-line leader in time of war, Rabin cannot be accused of being soft on Arafat because he made peace. After his historic handshake with Arafat on September 13, I asked him during a meeting in New York whether it had been a difficult moment for him. Rabin, who controls his deeply felt emotions as well as any leader I have ever met, almost lost his composure as he said, “It was not easy but I had no choice.” He vividly remembered the terribly painful moment when eleven Israeli athletes were killed at the 1972 Olympic Games, an attack for which Arafat was responsible. But he knew too that as a result of the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union, Arafat would no longer have the support of Russia, just as he would no longer have the same level of support from Saudi Arabia and the other moderate Gulf states because he took the wrong side in the Persian Gulf War. He also knew that among the Palestinians, Arafat was being criticized for being a “moderate,” and that an increasing danger existed that he might be replaced by a far more extreme Palestinian leader.

Rabin faced the classic dilemma described by Paul Johnson: “The essence of geopolitics is to be able to distinguish between different degrees of evil.” Rabin knew that Arafat was evil. But the choice was not between Arafat and somebody less evil, but between Arafat and somebody more evil. Arafat needs to deal because he is weak. Israel can risk making a deal with its worst enemy because it is strong.